Remediation work at legacy uranium mining sites in Uzbekistan is under way, bolstered by a EUR9 million (USD11 million) grant from the Environmental Remediation Account for Central Asia set up on the initiative of the European Union and managed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

Two research projects are to receive funding totalling GBP1 million (USD1.2 million) from UK and Japanese research councils to develop technologies to detect and process radioactive waste. The research will support work to decommission the UK's Sellafield plant and remove radioactive debris from the Fukushima Daiichi accident in Japan.

The UK's 140-tonne stockpile of civil plutonium could be used as fuel for thermal reactors or combined with the country's 100,000-tonne supply of depleted, natural and low-enriched uranium to fuel new fast reactors - or disposed of as waste in a future geological disposal facility - says a new report from The University of Manchester's Dalton Nuclear Institute exploring the options.

Swedish nuclear technical services provider Studsvik and German radioactive waste specialist GNS Gesellschaft für Nuklear-Service mbH have formed a strategic and exclusive cooperation to implement Studsvik's inDRUM technology for the German market. inDRUM is a patented technology for the treatment of problematic wastes, such as legacy wastes in aging drums.

A four-legged robot designed for autonomous operation in challenging environments has been put through its paces at a depth of more than 400 metres in the tunnels of the Onkalo underground used nuclear fuel repository near Olkiluoto, Finland.

The licence issued for the construction and operation of a consolidated interim storage facility for used nuclear fuel in Texas has been cancelled by a US appeals court. The court ruled that the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission does not have the authority to license a private storage facility away from nuclear reactors.

The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission has approved Xcel Energy's application to allow increased storage of used nuclear fuel at the Monticello nuclear power plant site, enabling the plant to operate for at least ten more years. The utility has applied to extend the plant's operating licence until 2050.

Orano USA has completed work to separate and pack the top third of the reactor vessel, with its embedded internal components, using its patented Optimized Segmentation process. The reactor vessel will be cut into three segments as the company carries out accelerated decommissioning of the plant.

Holtec International has completed its first used fuel loading campaign at a newly commissioned dry storage facility at the Slovenian nuclear power plant earlier than expected. Sixteen casks holding a total of 592 used fuel rods have now been placed in the facility.

Poland's Ministry of Climate and Environment is seeking municipalities interested in participating in the process of selecting a site for a new surface repository for low and intermediate-level short-lived radioactive waste. The country's existing national repository for such waste has been in operation since 1961.

A contract has been awarded for the backfilling of the former salt mine in Gorleben, Lower Saxony - previously considered a possible site for geological disposal of Germany's high-level radioactive waste.

The first waste has been removed from the Pile Fuel Cladding Silo, one of the oldest waste stores and one of the highest hazard facilities on the UK's Sellafield site.